Kennedy spoke just 288 days after he and 97 other senators voted 98-0 to confirm Antonin Scalia, Bork’s intellectual soulmate. Four years after the Senate rejected Bork, it confirmed Clarence Thomas, 52-48, after weighing last-minute accusations of past sexual misbehavior — talk, not touching. The next two justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, were confirmed with just three and nine opposing votes, respectively. Since then, however, the five justices confirmed (John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch) have had between 22 and 45 votes against them. This debacle du jour dramatizes how the court’s stature is hostage to the degrading confirmation process, which has become a maelstrom of insincerities.

Source: Manila Times September 22, 2018 16:41 UTC